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A World Without Books

Ok, so here’s something different on divaluscious.com and I’m really excited to take part! Today’s post is in conjunction with the Blog-A-Licious Blog Tour (my very first – yaay!) a fantastic blog hop that brings together bloggers of all genres, backgrounds and locations. I’m sure you’ll find plenty of blogs you’ll want to bookmark, I know I have!

In today’s hop, the blog featured before me is a wonderful blog for writers BookOrBust and the blog featured after me is the eclectic A Day Without Sushi. Keep the tour moving and definitely check them out and say “hey!” Also, a little birdie told me that some of us are giving away some cool stuff, so go forth and explore the tour stops. Happy reading!

Believe it or not, I struggled with the theme of a “world without books.” Catastrophic was the word that kept coming to mind. I don’t want to sound like a drama queen but how do you capture the end of civilization brought on by the stagnation of our imagination in a pithy little blog post? I mean it’s like asking me to write about not breathing.

We would all be drones living in little pods if not for the doorways to distant worlds that books unlocked. I tend to believe that the great minds of our time would be stymied because without books, without a record of what was done, what could be done and what we dreamt of doing, would they even venture to explore the impossible?

The need to express ourselves, to share our stories is something ingrained in us, look at the cave paintings. Even when there were no words or paper, we found a way to record our lives to seek out shared experiences.

I remember reading my first Judy Blume book and finding a kindred spirit, discovering Madeleine L’Engle and exploring different worlds. How many times did I wish I could step on a crack or find a secret passage way into a new world? Certain stories helped me to believe in the possibility of things and sometimes that’s all you need to get through the day.

Growing up, I was a true bookworm. Devouring as many books as possible, I used the library like it was my own personal bookshelf. I checked out the maximum amount of books allowed, only to return them a week a later, and scour the shelves for more hidden treasures. At that age, you’re searching for some unnamed thing…adventure, a purpose, a persona and books allowed me to try on different lives without any consequences. I think I experienced my first kiss somewhere in the pages of Forever.

Sometimes another’s words would capture exquisitely whatever I was going through (I must, I must, I must increase my bust- anyone remember that line?) and I found comfort in knowing someone else understood. What books from your childhood do you think had the biggest impact on you?

Not having books would be like clipping our imagination and giving civilization a massive dose of lithium, no longer able to explore distant lands real and imagined. Civilization would be stunted without the ability to record, revise (and sometimes reinvent) history. What the heck actually happened in Area 51?

A world without books would be like the earth not having the sun to revolve around. Books anchor us to our past and also allow our imaginations to soar at the same time. In a world without books, it would be like never having someone ask, “what if?”

(And because I live in Los Angeles, it goes without saying, a world without books would mean there would be very few movies to watch because so many of them are adaptations!)

“Not having books would be like clipping our imagination and giving civilization a massive dose of lithium, no longer able to explore distant lands real and imagined.” – So very true – I couldn’t agree more – Loved your post – Glad to be a part of the tour with you.

Great post, you sound a lot like me growing up. A Wrinkle in Time was one of my favorite books. I think the picture you’ve chosed shows exactly how I’d feel if there were no books. Glad to be on the Blog-A-Licious Blog Tour with you!

Yes, I loved the books that really sparked my imagination and made me search out the signs of magical worlds in my everyday life, it made life that much more interesting. So happy to be on the tour with you as well!

It never occurred to me until you said it, but you are exactly right – all the best movies are adaptations of books! So the film people might start off saying, “No more books, oh well,”…until they see what starts showing up in the theaters

.In a sign of the times Newport Beach is considering closing the citys original library and replacing it with a community center that would offer all the same features except for the books.. And books when ordered would be dropped off at a locker for pickup…A great deal of the academic work I do deals with the ways that libraries and extension services like bookmobiles are important for the ways they spatially and affectively define communities in ways that exceed a simple catalog of the books on their shelves. Libraries are unique and valuable community center s distinct from other kinds of community spaces athletic facilities city halls etc. in large part because of the books they hold–even if those books are not the entirety of the librarys purpose or effects….We must insist that having a public institution–an infrastructure–designed to preserve transmit and facilitate the creation of information even or especially information materialized in print is still important.

. PHOTO http://www.umich.edu .Looking up from a paperback you notice the bookstore s packed but no one s reading or buying anything. They re replaced by a group of guys taking their conversation from the bar to the bookstore and bringing their drinks along to be placed on those shelves..And of all its purposes one thing s clear books may function only as decorations for some people.